


steal your heart

by AxZi



Category: Heart no Kuni no Alice | Alice in the Country of Hearts
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Continues after Alice dies in the dead end route, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Multi, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12330468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxZi/pseuds/AxZi
Summary: Devi Marigold was street trash. Living her life based on the adage of "use and be used", she got in scuffles with people to get what she needed, or sold her company for the same. As a result she couldn't imagine a life where anyone would help and want nothing out of her. Until Jackal. But after all, the world is use or be used, and in the end, she kills her saviour and his love. She wants to die.Enter Dee and Dum, stage left. Dee and Dum killed Alice in their attempt to steal her heart, but even foreigners can be replaced. They ask Lucy one question- "Then won't you give us your life?" The life that she isn't using. Devi Marigold agrees.





	1. Devi

She'd killed him. The only person who didn't consider her a tool, who she'd loved so, who had taught her she could be someone different. Killed him for cheating with her with another man when they hadn't been in a relationship, and if she could go back she'd do it all over again too.

God, she hurt so much, sliding down the wall onto the floor, holding the gun weakly by the barrel, almost letting it slip like sand through her fingers. This had been her—she'd done this.

Devi Marigold had done this.

She flashed back to her past. Living on the streets for most of her childhood, then realizing letting people use her gave money. Choosing to hurt people so that she didn't hurt because she was so, so afraid. Afraid of everything in the world, but of disappearing the most.

Growing up, getting a taste of jewelry and refined clothing, dating various people specifically for the baubles they showered her with. Using and being used.

Then, her first meeting with Jackal in that alleyway, just finished a fight and in a state of defenselessness. Expecting, if not killed, than to be thrown in prison.

Remembering him instead picking her up on his shoulder and taking her home. Him tending her wounds without any expectations, pushing her away when she tried to kiss him.

Walking downtown with him, someone bumping into his shoulder without apologizing. His slight touch on her bicep before she could even do anything, whispering she didn't need to do anything, she didn't need to run after the man and make him pay. He didn't want her for her body, for the pleasure she could bring. He didn't want her to hurt others for his sake either.

Everything ending in the understanding that the world was give and take.

She looked dully at his curled up form, his coat sopping up the blood that was gushing from the many wounds in his body. She'd shot him several times after giving his fiance only a head shot. Not giving her a second glance.

"..see?"

What he'd made her do. The world was use and be used after all, but Jackal had let her use him.

"Because you said there were no strings attached.." A singular tear dripped down the curve of her cheek. "...Idiot."

He'd known who she truly was. She'd shown up at his house often enough, all bloody and broken, and he'd patch her up. He could have barred her from entry long ago.

A hiccuping sob shook her body.

"I wouldn't have let you though. I wouldn't have-!"

In the end, this was the only way their relationship could end. Maybe if he'd been different, had cared about her danger, about her true nature, she'd have been stuck in prison right now. He'd have been safe.

"idiot!"

She twisted her hands into the hard material of her jacket, and slammed her fists into the carpet. "Idiot, idiot, idiot!"

If only. But if she had to do it again, she'd do it again in a heartbeat.

"Idiot!"

She continued railing to the heavens for her circumstances...but the heavens wouldn't let her rail on until she died.

Soon enough, voices reverberated in her room, seemingly coming from two mouths.

"What a tragedy, brother."

"That's right, it is a tragedy. It makes me sick to my stomach watching this, brother."

Two voices spoke companionable to each other, but leeched of any life. Only the familiar term brother made it feel familiar.

Devi went stiff. H- huh?

Hadn't she closed the door to this room?

Hadn't she decided from the very start, to stay in this room until it's end?

What were these strangers doing inside her tomb?

Why were they intruding upon her and her love's end?

Who did they think they were?

Why had they invaded?

The words slipped from her tongue as the two brothers stepped into her line of sight from the left of her.

"How did you two get here?"

"Brother, she's not asking who we are," one of the brothers observed.

They were mirror images of themselves. Twins. They wore matching pinstriped suits, but one of them wore his hair back in a ponytail while the other had short hair with his bangs kept back by hair clips. One of them had eyes a perfectly normal, if a bit more vibrant than usual, blue—the other's were a deep red colour, like wine.

The one with blue eyes turned his eyes away from his brother to observe her, the curve of his neck moving fluidly like a hunting bird's. She felt underneath a spotlight, all of a sudden, sitting there soaked in blood.

"That's because she's not interested in us. She's only interested in the man who's heart she stole, right?"

The last, she could hear, was directed towards her.

She shoved herself backwards over the carpet, swallowing painfully.

"Then we've got that in common, girl," the one with wine eyes decided, before he stepped over the remains of her love's girlfriend to move towards her.

"We're not interesting in you at all," the other brother assured, and the uncaring pan of his eyes told her this was true. But nevertheless, he took a step forwards too, coming towards her.

I don't want to know at all. She slid backwards further, until her back hit the wall. As she was, all her energy lost from killing her lover's lover and her lover himself, and from that mental breakdown afterwards, she was defenseless like this. There was no way that, if they wanted to kill her, she'd be able to stop them.

This place was supposed to turn into her tomb, but...not this way. Not through such a method by people who weren't involved at all. It wasn't supposed to...be this way—!

Tak. From where she sat hunched and shivering, the red-eyed brother stopped a meter away. His eyes reminded her of a frozen wasteland, cutting into her by meeting her eyes.

"And it's not like big sis was anything special, brother."

"That's right," the other voice came light, sweetened with venom. Tak, his foot came down as he joined his brother so their shoulders were almost brushing. "She was just the foreigner. Special because there weren't other foreigners, brother."

Twin gazes clicked on her, like their gazes were shoving in a last puzzle piece. Their eyes were bypassing her completely, with the blank faces of dolls.

"Just a foreigner so, if we replace her, it'll be just as well."

"In the end, she didn't give us her heart. Though she said we could take it, she lied."

She, she she she? Who...are they talking about?

"Hey, if you can't forgive this scene." The blue-eyed sibling crouched, the movement like he was floating, and reached out with his hand. "If you can't help but return to it, over and over again—"

"If you can't help but be stuck in this sepia toned, endless moment—" The red-eyed sibling crouched as well, the movement like flowing water.

"Then won't you give that useless, discarded life you own, to us brothers?"

Her eyes skipped to the one brother to the next, to the faces which could not see her. It almost felt like they had been the ones who'd discarded their lives, not her. But... I know better. What they'd said was true, she had decided she'd forever be stuck in this moment, that it was the only moment she wanted to survive.

Though they had intruded into this moment which she'd wanted to stay crystal clear, and now they were asking her control over her life? They wanted...to own her?

Devi Marigold didn't know what the foreigner they were talking about was. She didn't know who that she was, except that she was probably the foreigner they spoke about.

She'd wanted to die. But if she gave it to these two, whether she died or not, wasn't it the same in the end? She hadn't lived before this man, the man whose memories of him these two had trampled on as well as his physical corpse. Going back to that would be like dying anyway.

To use and be used...

Devi glanced at the hands stretched out before her from people she knew nothing about, and grasped them.

"Deal."

....  
"Dee and Dum," is what the brothers told her, once it was all over. She'd jumped out of the window of the place at their words, only to find herself on the top of a tower and miraculously unharmed. But whether or not the fall would have led her to her death, it was all the same to Devi. After all, she'd already lost what made live worth living. Devi was now just a living corpse.

"Jackal," she introduced herself in return at the other end of their gazes. "Call me Jackal. It'll be my name from now on."

"Nope!" the flat refusal greeted her cheerfully.

What? Devi turned her attention on the blue-eyed of the twins. Why? The only reason she was accepting their orders was because of her old friend, her reason for living. If they wanted her to never bring Jackal up again as if he was a stranger to her, she had every intention on disobedience. And they should know that.

Dee turned away to stand at the edge of the tower, peering into the distance. "That name doesn't suit you." His eyes, turned towards the sun, shone dully, as if rather than her, it was him that was a living corpse. His brother quietly watched on.

The man turned on his heel with a dull thump, and their eyes met. "Don't you think a name like Alice suits you much more?"

Devi stayed mum. Probably, the name Alice referred to the outsider previous to her.

At that moment, footsteps sounded out from the direction of the open stairwell. A man with luscious blue locks stomped the rest of the way up until he reached the platform. "Ah." He took in her standing next to Dum, and Dee standing of to the side, his blue eyes steadily filling with enough annoyance to feed a horde.

The tension was dispelled from the air in an instance as he sighed and muttered, "This again."

"Clockmaker!" Greeting him cheerfully, Dee stepped over the curbed edge and joined the man below the entrance. "We've got a new arrival we want you to approve! You'll do it, right?" The smile he gave the man glittered in innocence.

"Won't you?" Away from her, the red-eyed brother siddled up to the man's other side. With twin smiles, the twin men silently pressured him.

Devi just silently watched this, feeling like so much luggage. But she'd signed up for this even without knowing their characters', so if she wanted to blame someone it'd have to be herself.

Just then, words floated absently in the space from behind the man. "Julius? Who're you talking to?"

There was genuine curiosity in the lighthearted voice. A red boot clomping down onto the platform soon joined the sound and he came into view.

The man who'd just entered wore a tattered brown cloak, clipped to broad shoulders. At his waist casually hung a broadsword with a red hilt—woven out of bamboo, Devi guessed. He gave off a powerful presence, if Devi ignored the refreshing smile on the young man's face.

At that moment, the twins she'd been so impressed by started screaming- "AAAH! It's Ace!" In synchronization they jerked away from the entrance and jumped behind her like two scared rabbits.

Devi felt her guard go up in response.

The man with blue locks glanced at his friend and carelessly said, "It happened again. Another foreigner was guided to this place." The disapproval in his words didn't need to be mentioned.

"Oh? We haven't had a foreigner in so long, and already one is here?"

Despite his somewhat unwelcoming words, the young man grinned happily when she met his eyes.

"Back away from our foreigner!" Twin cries insisted, and suddenly she had the twins hanging off of her shoulders like they were a tree's branches.

The intruder's gaze didn't waver even an inch from her own.

She shrugged. "You heard them. I'm these two's foreigner." Not the man's who was coldly observing them, or the man's in the tattered cloak now locking eyes with her.

Of course, this could change at any time. The only one who'd earned her loyalty was Jackal. Since he was dead, that meant she owed it to absolutely nobody right now. Hell, should she even accept the name change the brothers were trying to lay on her? After all, in the end, she really wanted to keep Jackal's.

"Huh?" The guy tilted his head. "That irritates me a lot for some reason." He started laughing, looking not in the least frustrated.

While he was distracted, Dum took a moment to whisper, "Let's make our leave."

A glint of silver sailed through the air and cut into his space.

Dum, dodging it, landed softly onto stone a few meters away from her and Dee.

Amazing.

Devi, though not especially good at fighting, still had been in more than her fair share of scraps. Her reflexes were polished to a human's utmost limit, and yet the moment she'd been made aware of the knife, Dum had already dodged it.

That's why it was amazing.

But that made worry bubble up in her. If she did leave the brothers eventually, with their skill as it was, would she be able to? She thought it was likelier they'd cut her down before she could.

"Leaving now already?" The grinning figure wearing a tattered cloak called out, one knife balancing between his knuckles. "But you only just got here. Stay for a while! Julius is very hospitable, you know."

"No. All of you leave." Coldly, the man still standing in the doorway ignored his friend's wishes.

"You mean me too? Julius, how mean~" the man laughed in response.

Devi's face became a mask of disbelief as Dee gently tugged her behind him. If she hadn't seen the intruder do it, Devi would never think he was the type to attack people like that without provocation. The air he gave of was just completely refreshing even combined with such blood thirsty acts. There was no doubting the power in his frame, but the thought he'd use it nefariously-

"What...is this place?"

For the first time since coming here, Devi finally showed an emotional response. Maybe she wasn't that corpse like, yet.

The man they called Ace heard her and replied cheerfully, "We're in Wonderland."

Wonderland. Devi guessed, in many ways, it was a place above wonder. As Dee reflected a thrown knife with the butt of his axe, she thought she should really polish her skills. Even if she was no match against these inhuman people, it was a disgrace that she should be protected by those she'd given her life to.

As Dum entered the battle with a wide swing of his blade, parried by Ace, Devi made a mental note of it.

In the end, the battle was only broken up when a fed-up Julius shot his gun in the air and Ace stopped trying to murder everyone. Because he'd been trying to murder everyone, that much is clear.

"We'll get you next time!"

Spouting these stereotypical words, the brothers hurried along with her down the stairs until they were out in the sun again.

The twins still didn't calm down, and ignoring the idylic looking town of the side of the tower, they led her out onto a path into the countryside.

Only here did Dee and Dum lower their pace. They also started taking their anger out on the country side.

"Ah, that xxxx!" Dee swore, slamming the bottom of his foot into a tree at the side of the road. "Making us look so bad in front of Devi." Dum, sobbing, drove the blade of his axe into one of the baked bricks of the path.

They were both blatantly ignoring her, for all the red-eyed brother acted like his mood was because of her.

They were also acting much, much more childish than Devi had ever expected. Where were the dead-eyed siblings she'd met at that scene with Jackal and his lover? Where were those she'd known would kill her were she stood, and had turned her into a quivering mess?

Devi thought back to the fight against Ace. Ah, they had still been there after all. But the grave atmosphere from before was still missing. She felt less like she'd be cut into ribbons if she disobeyed them. That was despite her knowing they were frightfully dangerous, inhuman, and that she'd never be able to defend herself against them, if there came such a time.

"But more importantly," Dee said, turning from the tree and meeting her gaze. "We should finish the conversation from back then."

"Almost forgot," his brother hummed, and heaved his axe onto his shoulder were it rightfully belonged.

"You're Alice's replacement," Dum spread his hands apart in explanation.

His brother went on to say, "Alice was a foreigner. She was veeeery important to us."

"But someone led her astray, so she couldn't give us our heart even though she told us we had it."

"There was nothing else brother and I could do."

Dum's voice grew monotonous, "We- we took sister's heart. Brother and I were gentle when we slid into her chest with our axes."

"She didn't feel a thing," supported Dum glumly.

"Her heart disappeared into a thousand pieces not a moment later."

Their story told, the two just stared off into the distance, the childishness faded from their faces.

I'm reminded. Flashing back to when she'd done that to Jackal and his lover. How she'd come to the understanding it was the only proper thing to do, and then to die for. She'd made herself a tomb because even after that, the world was still to use and be used and she wouldn't be able to handle it.

We're birds of a feather. Looking at these two young men to who she was their sister's replacement, she couldn't help feel this more.

The realization would be tragic for them then, she was sure, when they came to know a person couldn't be replaced.

She laughed dryly in her mind. Heh, or I'd have already done it.

For the rest of the way, all three of them were silent, locked into their own minds.


	2. Blood

“Oya?” his brow hitching slightly, a strange, willowy built guy with a tophat and the pale skin of someone who hadn’t been outside for a while, looked them over. She and the two twins she now realized were her kindred spirits, had walked through a forest before arriving at a large estate, surrounded by an equally large gate. Demi had suspected there had to be a wealthy land owner behind the estate, and from his coat tailed appearance and pasty skin, she could presume this was the one.

She could have easily guessed that the estate belonged to the twins, but for all how smartly they were dressed, they wore it like an ill fitting skin. The flashiness didn’t suit those dead eyed strangers she’d sold her company to.

Returning her attention to the man who’s sharp eyes were still inspecting her, she deliberated over whether to courtesy. Turning to glance over at the bored figures of the twins, Dee right now fidgeting with the hilt of his axe and his twin having already turned his back to the man to watch something over the horizon instead, she guessed it didn’t really matter.

_A lacklustre introduction it is._ “Hello, I’m Demi.” A compromise between what she wanted and Dee and Dum wanted, keeping the name Alice and Jackal tucked away safely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The man’s expression shifted, like he was withholding a rueful smile – the cause of which Demi didn’t get and wasn’t very interested in. For now, there wasn’t a lot Demi was interested in, and he said, with a sluggish voice, “Ah, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Blood Dupre. I assume my careless underlings haven’t given you any information about me, nor this estate?”

The voice was so sluggish, the vowels being practically dragged out of his mouth inch by inch, that it surprised her he was still capable of standing upright by his own power. _It’s almost surely impossible that he could sound even more dismotivated._

“… that’s right,” she finally replied, “I have _no_ clue as to what the twins do, but I can make a few guesses. And, underlings? So whoever you are, they answer to you.”

“Sharp,” the man replied, as if she wasn’t aware he’d meant for her to catch that, but he sounded so done with it that she couldn’t conjure up any offense, “and so it bids me to ask: do you really want to stay here, in our little house of crime?”

Dee, who was still positioned to the side of her, made an aggressive down swipe of his axe, slashing an open wound into the soil. She wasn’t an idiot, so she knew that was completely intentional.

She did have to wonder though, the unconcerned static of before washing over her as Dee hiked his axe back up onto his shoulder and smiled brightly at his boss, just how the twins would kill her if she abandoned them. _And who would they replace me with?_

“I see,” Blood’s voice broke her trail of thoughts, although she hadn’t yet given him her answer. The curved up line of his lips resembled a smirk above all else as he tipped his hat. “Then, let me officially welcome you to your new home.” The man turned on his heel and started a swaggering walk off of the lawn towards distant mansion.

_He wants me to follow him, I presume?_ Demi felt like her options were quickly closing off. It didn’t stop her from slotting behind.

A walk – or tour, it didn’t make a difference for her – around the mansion later, and Demi felt the first traces of puzzlement.

“What happened to those people that they don’t have a face?”

She felt a small bit of surprise too, that she could still feel concerned about people. She’d thought her experience with…. That women, and Jackal, had burnt the emotion right out of her. But maybe, even if Jackal wasn’t there anymore, the lessons he’d taught her before he’d come across the woman were still with her.

She felt her face soften as she thought of that. Yes, that’s right… she did carry him with her in a certain way, even now, didn’t she?

But, how she _wished_ it hadn’t needed to turn out like this…

She’d stopped and asked this while they were still in the hallways. The mansion had an impressive maze of corridors, the swanky, broad floored type only rich people had access to. Though the place could have done without the top hat patterned wallpaper.

But, also acting as decoration, had been the similarly uniformed people at each crossing who bowed to Blood when he walked by, and nodded politely to her. She almost wished she’d met them before she’d met Blood, because it turned out her thoughts about curtesying to Blood had been right after all.

There certainly was some kind of dress code in place, but she’d zeroed in on their lack of faces from the moment they were in view, and now she couldn’t stop herself from feeling concerned.

“What?” twin faces of incomprehension met her from Dee and Dum’s camp, but Blood chuckled instead. “The way you’re talking its like you think their facelessness is from a disease, but its nothing to worry about. They were born this way.”

_Born this way?_ “What, do you mean it’s some kind of … genetical oddity?” she asked him, just to check.

“On the contrary, people in this country would say it is us who have faces who are the oddity,” Blood finished.

The thought boggled her mind. A place where facelessness was not only accepted as normal, but was in fact the status quo? “But how can people identify them then?”

They had stopped not far away from another corner where one of those people stood watch, and he delicately cleared his throat to draw her attention.

Demi felt momentarily embarrassed for speaking about people like him without thinking to asking him, an actual faceless, for his input.

But she’d have it now, so she wasn’t regretful. “Please, if you have something to say, don’t let me stop you.”

“Yes, please help our guest,” Blood supported.

The man, wearing the same decorative black and red outfit as the rest of his fellows, took it as permission to speak. “The question you asked has a very simple answer to it, miss. Only in very exceptional circumstances is it necessary for us to be identifiable, and we faceless have plenty of tricks to discriminate between ourselves so it isn’t that much of a handicap to live with.” 

_Hm._ “So let me get it straight,” she squinted at the boy, who’s demeanor had stayed calm and even for all the time he’d talked, “Let me get this all out of there…. But, you don’t think it’s necessary that.. people like us, who do have faces, are able to discriminate between you and your kind?”

His answer came swiftly, “Not at all, miss. I don’t think that has ever been necessary at all.”

She wanted to reply to that, when Dum made a humming noise in the back of his throat and she looked over. “Hey hey, you’re forgetting an occasion that it was necessary, right?”

His brother nodded fervently next to him, his axe leaning precariouslyr to the side from his folded arms. “Is it- could it be- have you actually forgotten about Alice?”

Silence. Immediately, a hush drew over the area after the words ‘Alice’ left the boy’s lips. If Demi dropped a penny, it was silent enough even that ringing wouldn’t detract from it. The uniformed boy’s face had grown an absolute white almost as sterile as her surroundings, something she didn’t think was wrong of him.

She felt her guts churning with a sick feeling as she recognised what this meant. This was another soul who had been touched by Alice’s mere existence.

Was there nobody who hadn’t been? She fervently hoped that at least Blood had remained untouched. Shooting him a side glance, she saw his lips had pulled unhappily taut. Maybe not.

Somehow, that was enough so the hackles she’d felt rise within her started to flatten. And suddenly she realized that that reaction had been _completely_ out of the left field.  

Letting the conversation move on without her, she looked inward.

_Could it be?_

_No, it wasn’t, …right?_

… And found something she didn’t like.

She didn’t want Alice to touch so many people’s hearts because she was jealous. Jealous of Alice, that is. _Why is she able to gain the attention of so many people when only Jackal would look at me? Why did she so dumbly ruin this opportunity of hers by scorning Dee and Dum’s love?_

She was finding that Dee and Dum’s situation had parallels with hers, but it was still very much not the same. Among those was Alice. _Alice isn’t the same as Jackal._ Jackal never promised her his love, but she knew nevertheless that her relationship with him couldn’t go on further. She’d reached the limit of what he’d give her, and for that, she’d needed to sever that relationship to keep even that little before jealousy and hate could strangle it.

But she didn’t blame Jackal. _But Alice is to blame._ She’d never expected much from Jackal. _But Alice had let the twins hope._  

Conclusion: _Alice had been cruel._

She heard a voice suddenly say, “Excuse me,” before her face landed in the soft material of Blood’s coat. It very definitely broke her train of thought when she suddenly felt something splatter against the back of her head, from when he’d pivoted her around and stuffed her face in his chest.

A low gurgling sound, and a thump, sounded next, before there was nothing but the inhalation of the people around her. Then, Blood stepped back and smiled confidently at her. “We should be getting to the garden. It’s midnight now, after all. A perfect time for a tea party.” The sluggish man then drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and reaching out with his hand he removed whatever had hit her in the back.

Watching him pocket the handkerchief, she frowned in confusion about this whole situation. He obviously hugged her to protect her from something, but what? And what would cause some liquid to splash on her? She wanted to turn around, and was at the point of doing so when Dum said, “Yes, you and Blood go, Demi. Brother and I will clean ourselves up and catch up.”

She tilted her head. _How confusing._ Then shouldn’t she freshen up first as well? But an inward flicking movement of Blood’s fingers made her realize it would probably be in her best interest to just leave for now.

_I’ll just think about this mystery later on._ Rubbing the back of her head, Demi began walking down the hallway with him.

 

“And so you did what?” she asked, fascinated despite herself by the story the newest arrival had been spouting.

“Ah,” the rough voice of the carotene-haired boy said, “that’s obvious! Since it was Blood’s order that I put on the tablewear, I put on that tablewear with pride!”

Meanwhile, across from him sitting at the other side of the tea set, the subject of the conversation sat sighing in a cup of tea. “You were supposed to throw it so the boiling tea hit them from the front.” One he was holding to his face to hide behind and avoid the boy's adoring gaze. He wasn’t having much success.

“Besides, it helped a lot with keeping the blood stains from my clothes after Blood shot them through,” the oblivious boy added as a cheerful side note to the story.

This boy, Elliot March, was pretty interesting. With an intense loyalty towards Blood (plainly not repriscated by Blood, though she also felt she was getting those vibes because the boy’s gushing embarrassed him). Added with how easy he found it to talk about criminal underground matters with her compared even to the twins, the boy definitely had character.

“So… Blood...” she said, carefully putting down her half-filled cup, “you own a gun?”

A stupid question, maybe, but she liked knowing where exactly she stood on the matter. And Jackal always had been a huge advocate in there being no such thing as a stupid question.

“Doesn’t everyone?” the boss-man’s right hand man intercepted, his tone matter of factly.

The twins looked over from where they’d been creating a tower of cards on the floor, and Dum waved his axe demonstratingly, “We don’t!”

“You do,” Elliot’s voice took on a scolding cadence, “don’t confuse Blood’s guest.”

The pony-tailed twin pulled a face. “Hmph! If it was possible, brother and I would give our guns right back and not deal with them at all!”

“At all, at all!” Dum wasn’t far to support.

_What was this place, America?_ She found herself thinking incredulously.

 

A week later, and she could say with certainty that this was fantasy land America. Everyone owned a gun. Everyone.

“But, why?” She threw her hands in the air in an expression of her discontent. “This isn’t at all what Jackal told me was normal!”

She felt almost childish throwing a temper tantrum against a facet of society she clearly couldn’t change, but the existence of so many guns went against Jackal’s sensibilities, and so it did for her too.

She knew that she was also being very public with her discontent now. She was standing in line to an attraction at an amusement park, so there were gazes on her coming from everywhere. Even on a good day she wouldn’t have cared about them though.

But maybe she wanted them to know she was disappointed, in the hopes that the immovable object that was today’s society would budge.

It was the least she could do.. and maybe by continuing Jackal’s philosophy, she’d continue being close to him. Moments later, she felt happiness fizz through her and her lips curved up by inches.

_Yes. This is the correct path to take,_ she felt assured. 

“Hey, Demi!” she heard hollered not seconds later. Her head snapped towards the sound, and Dee waved at her from beside a boy who must have raided a costume shop where so far as his outfit was concerned. Really, purple cat ears? The pair of them stood at the end of the queue, and she had a suspicion that he’d end up causing a scene if she didn’t disengage from hers.

As much as she knew they were kindred spirits, in this case that went against her. She was aware cutting through a queue of strangers wouldn’t be a lot of sweat of his back, especially if it were a bunch of people between which he couldn’t even discriminate. But be that as it may, she squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples to get rid of a burgeoning headache.

She’d entered the amusement park with the longer haired brother after leaving his shorter haired twin to his job as gatekeeper. And it hadn’t been to relax, ohno no no.

It’d been so she could browse a collection of weapons that a friend of his had and pick one out. For hating guns so much, the twins had been surprisingly insistent that she arm herself, but their instinctual jump backwards when she pondered whether it was to protect herself from Ace told her all she needed to know.

Of course, them then hurrying to say that she should definitely flee on sight if she met Ace told her all she needed to know too, about whether guns were actually a deterrence against the man or not.

So, she’d gotten from that that it was useless to even buy herself a gun. She should just get better wth her knives and not touch tools she hadn’t used before – and would’ve, if Jackal was alive, make him make that squinty face of disapproval again.

Demi felt sniffy again as she recognised she’d never be able to see him do that face again. Fuck. _Fuck._ Jackal, you idiot!

But as a more pressing issue, she had to make up her mind about whether to just break for it and run half of the amusement park and ditch her minder (Dee) again, or give up on the inevitable and also not poke the probably unstable bear (boy).

_Hm… decisions decisions…._

“Come on!”

Dee walking right up to her after charging through a willingly moving crowd and grabbing her arm was enough of a decision to her, and she let her shoulders droop as she followed him over to the circus reject. _Purple cat ears, a big fat boa around the shoulders and a lot of golden chains, for serious?_

The reject smiled at her with all his face, the only one she’d met so far who could make proper facial expressions for all his horrid fashion sense and said, “So you’re our latest newcomer huh? Then, let this kitty give you a big welcome to Wonderland!” he swept out his arm, “Hopefully you’ll enjoy your stay.” He winked. “No refunds allowed.”

“So does that mean I’m effectively a prisoner here?” she asked dryly. It was funny because she was. If she didn’t follow the twins here they’d have killed her – and she would’ve allowed them. Instead, she was living in a limbo right now, unsure about whether to continue on, but uncaring about the idea of death. Again, she was a bit in limbo now, but if it was some random girl the twins plucked off of the streets they would’ve ended up in a hostage situation.

Her eyes pricked when she thought about Jackal, but she forcibly turned her mind away from the subject and asked the kitty cosplayer instead, “I heard there would be guns. Where are the guns?”

He looked at her oddly at the subject change, before shrugging and saying, “That’s were me and Dee are going to next, just follow behind us.” His tail twitched – he actually had a tail, was this boy really completely all there? And she nodded meekly at Dee’s hand squeezing her arm.

As they hit the pink bricks, she started to ask the cat a series of questions.

“I’ve noticed something.”

“Hm? Tell me, I’ll answer you~” the kitty cosplayer replied.

“The staff of this amusement park all look exactly the same and so do the staff at the Hatter’s mansion –“ she’d heard during the week that Blood’s crime organisation went by that monker – “So were they bred specifically for this role or… what?”

“Pffffft..!”

The reject let out a sudden burst of laughter at her completely serious inquiry, stopping for a second to clutch his stomach as he let out a series of haha’s.

She watched him do it in polite interest.

Only asking, “Are you done?” once he’d gotten his laughter under control. The cat-boy started moving again and flashed her a completely friendly smile, “Thank you. I really needed that.”

“You don’t understand what the faceless we met last week was trying to tell you?” Dee pondered in a tone of mild disbelief. But she’d been interrupted in the midst of speaking to the boy because of his and his brother’s handiwork.

She’d done some thinking after things were less hectic, when she’d gone to bed the same day that it took place and came to the conclusion that Dee and Dum had killed the faceless and that the liquid that had splashed on the back of her head was blood. It had been funny to her that Blood, a crime boss, had felt the need to shield her from both the knowledge of that and the effects, because it just meant that Dee and Dum had kept her circumstances a complete secret.

Why they would do that? Even after wracking her brains, she was still unsure. She’d decided to put the matter aside alongside everything else that had to wait to be solved.

“I understand that faceless are an existence which are - either or actually – considered to be replacable, and so their lack of a stand out is more of an advantage than disadvantage to them, as it’d make them even more replacable.”

Dee affectionately bumped his shoulder against her, “So you shouldn’t be thinking about complex issues like the faceless. There the way the way they are because it’s a feature, not bug.”

_Hm, that just makes me…_ “Did Alice ponder about the issue of the faceless?” she wondered out loud. _Want to poke the bear even more, honestly._

Dee frowned severely at her over the appendage he’d still not let go off, but over this action Boris obliviously spoke, “Actually, yes. She was even more confused by their existence than you are. Is you two’s world very different then?” His eyes gleamed like a cat’s during night time play and she knew he was inquisitive.

_My world…._ Ignoring Dee rather blatantly elbowing his friend in the side she let herself sink further into thought.

Right, that was true… how did this world differ from her own? Because it was different from her own, so she could point out what was wrong about it while being blind of the wrongs of her own? Wasn’t that rather arrogant of her, to think that just because this place was so strange and new and different it meant that this world was anymore understandable than that of her own?

It was like someone from a western society making assumptions about, let’s say Japan – just because there were differences, could they really say “this is the way their society is because it has to be as it opposes our own country’s values, and if our country would have such a society it’d be because of that reason?”

As these thoughts tolled in her head, she realized she’d just confused herself now. What was she even trying to say about her urge to know more about this country? That it was useless for her to know?

She could say, “there must be a reason behind the existence of faceless,” but what if they were just born that way and society gave them such a role as a natural consequence of their existence? Causation did not equal correlation. Or, simplified, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

…Woh, missing Jackal was messing with her brain such that she was starting to turn philosophical!

“Stop thinking, Al-Demi,” Dee at her elbow, raised his hand to give head her an affectionate pat, barely a stutter in his words as he switched the name he’d been about to call out. He teased, “I can hear your brain cranking from here.”

Demi followed the direction of his hand to her crown in bemusement. Well, she shrugged inwardly, whatever he wanted to do.

“And my brain doesn’t crank,” she didn’t forget to add.

He smiled widely at her in response. Something told her he was just humouring her.

“Hmm. hey Dee, you sure you two are friends? Your interactions seem pretty one-sided, I think,” she heared from the cat-boy as his ears gave a twitch.

Demi shifted her gaze to the top of the boy’s head In fascination. _They were real? Shock, horror._

She didn’t hear her minder’s response because that’s when they entered the cat boy’s lair.

 

It was something like a vault. A vault filled to the brim with different kinds of guns, all of them stuck to the wall.

“Can you hurry it up? My gun allergy is starting to act up,” Dee complained as he stepped in the vault with her.

The other thing which stood out to her was that almost all of the guns had been customized to look exactly the same as the one Boris (as cat-boy insisted to be called) had. At least were colouring was concerned.

“Hurry up? But I have no knowledge over guns. None whatsoever. So I wouldn’t know where to start.” Her own dull voice clanged against the vault’s walls, showing just how motivated this whole day trip was making her.

Not very.

She still felt uncertain about whether to use a gun at all, but she’d guessed it didn’t make any difference to at least own one. She could always just keep it locked in her bedside cabinet whenever she went out. Inside there was no threat anyway, and she’d have an excuse “I forgot to bring it” ready if the twins went on her case about it.

For disliking guns, they sure were very vehement Demi use one.

“What matters the most is what you’ll use it for.” The cat-boy’s eyes were practically lit up in enthusiasm as he assured her off this, and he moved within the modest confines of the vault to take one elongated (as compared to others) gun out to check the receiver. “A quick action gun will let you squeeze one out, bam! With just the pull of a trigger, and there’s different sub machine ones with more power! You can change the recoil to your liking too.” He turned on his heel and gave her a once over, before his eyes looked at her with pity, “Ah, you’ll probably also need a light weight one so that it won’t blown you away.”

His back calves muscles stretched as he moved the gun back on it’s rack. Only wearing a skort made movement like that pretty noticeable.

“Then, I’ll take that one.”

Pointing at a single action revolver, the only gun that Demi knew a bit more of than the others, and it was done.

 


End file.
